Simple English Wikipedia
For another article I’m working on, I came across the Simple English Wikipedia, a parallel set of articles written in a subset of English designed for non-native speakers, students, children and others who may have trouble with standard English:
Simple English is similar to English, but it only uses basic words.
We suggest that articles should use only the 1000 most common and basic words in English. They should also use only simple grammar, and shorter sentences. Writers can also use a special system, for example Basic English. Of course, people can write original articles; these could be put in both this and the main Wikipedia (with a normal level of English). Usually, only about 2,000 words are enough to write a normal article.
For example, here is the first paragraph from the botany article, first in the regular English wikipedia…
Botany, plant science(n), phytology, or plant biology is a branch of biology and is the scientific study of plant life and development. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines that study plants, algae, and fungi including: structure, growth, reproduction, metabolism, development, diseases, chemical properties, and evolutionary relationships between the different groups. Botany began with tribal efforts to identify edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, making botany one of the oldest sciences. From this ancient interest in plants, the scope of botany has increased to include the study of over 550,000 species of living organisms.
…and in Simple English:
Botany is a science. It is a branch of biology, and is also called plant biology. It is sometimes called phytology. Botany is the study of plants. Scientists who study botany are called botanists. They want to learn about how plants work.
That feels like a book report I wrote in third grade after a deep research session with the World Book Encyclopedia. But that’s a good thing. For many users, that simple definition of botany is all they need. It answers their question, and provides a basis for further learning.
More importantly, a user with limited English could write that article and share it with the world, while inviting the same kind of editing and feedback that native-language articles get. A teenager in Botswana could document the rules for a common game largely unknown outside the community. That’s remarkably helpful.
I can anticipate cries of implicit English imperialism; who says that the world’s knowledge is better kept in English? Fair enough. But I’d rather the article exist in Simple English than not exist. I’d also suggest that Simple English probably machine-translates into other languages more easily than other alternatives.
As a side note, it’s worth pointing out that the simple article for “screenwriter” is currently better than the full one.
Articles
April 20th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I had no idea there was a Wikipedia version in Simple English. Sounds pretty awesome actually.
If it is possible to convey the same information in a way that is easier to understand it should be standard instead of an alternative. No need to complicate things.
English has more or less become the standard language for communication between people who do not speak the same native language, at least in the western world, and personally I think it’s great so I can only agree with you regarding Wikipedia.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
The simple version is great. How about a link or a way to direct the reader to the more complicated version if they want to learn more?
April 20th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I used Simple Wikipedia when I was doing heavy research into the physic of time travel for my script, because the regular Wikipedia was just to heady to understand. They were using science terms I didn’t know to define more science terms I didn’t know, so I just said screw it.
Simple Wikipedia was an absolute Godsend. If it wasn’t for it, I wouldn’t have gotten the basic understanding I deemed necessary to write the story I wanted.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Voice of America does something similar. They call it special English. It has the advantage that you can actually here a native speaker’s pronunciation. And has written transcripts of the audio, so you can read along.
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/about_special_english.cfm
April 20th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Love the idea. I remember in ‘94 here in South Africa (where we have 11 official languages) when they wrote the constitution, they also brought in a specialised team to make sure that the constitution was in simple understandable English.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
It feels like there’s something else going on here. In both the botany and screenwriter examples you provide, not only is the language simpler but also the concepts (as you touched upon with your “third grade book report” comment). So the Simple English examples feel like expanded dictionary entries, while the original Wikipedia examples feel more like actual encyclopedia entries.
But still, both are useful in different situations.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
http://xkcd.com/547/
April 20th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Fascinating.
John, do you think that you have a deeper appreciation for Simple English because of your vocation? It seems we are more likely to use Purple Prose as novices, before we come around to the concrete beauty of direct sentences. And who benefits from such concise language more than a screenwriter?
There is a parallel in mathematics as well, as simple equations are esteemed over complicated ones, even earning the title “beautiful.”
In my own writing, a great deal of the revision process is cutting for this directness, brevity, and simplicity. It reminds me of the famous anecdote by the writer who lamented that he wrote such a long letter to a friend because he didn’t have the time to write a short one.
April 20th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
@S.D.Eric: Such a link exists, actually: In the left sidebar at the bottom, you’ll find links to several other languages. These links lead directly to the article about the current subject in that particular language. That part of the Wikipedia navigation isn’t named properly though.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:33 am
simple version is great!!
http://www.nyfa.com/film_school/programs/screenwriting/
April 21st, 2009 at 9:06 am
Third graders of the word, UNITE!
I think many articles written in “off-putting” hi falutin’ scientificalese are done that way necessarily.
Me? Overwrite my audience? I resent your insinuation.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:11 am
All this simplifying of language, although useful, can’t help but remind me of 1984… I get the practical purposes, but I always cringe a little when I hear about anything that restricts language. That’s my biggest problem with Twitter, too. What can I do, it’s the crazy extremist in me…
April 21st, 2009 at 10:24 am
simple version rocks!
April 21st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I think the idea is good. But I worry that this is just the harbinger of an Idiocracy style downfall to our society where native english speakers will use it because understanding the more scientific version is just too hard.
But like I said, it’s a good idea and certainly opens up knowledge to non native english speakers.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I am required to take an online class about teaching ESL students. It’s like you’re part of the class.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:58 pm
James–Your parallel is also apropos to the point I was making:
“There is a parallel in mathematics as well, as simple equations are esteemed over complicated ones…”
Newton was able to use algebra to express the basics of gravity, and that’s still the simple language we all initially learn gravity from. But we needed to develop calculus before we could master gravity and send someone to the moon…
Ken
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:24 am
I think this has nothing to do with vocabulary, at heart, and everything to do with syntax and mentality.
The problem with the “full” screenwriting article isn’t that it’s not simple, it’s that the ideas are strung together without much sequence or thought: “This is a thing. This is a thing that has to do with the thing. This is another related thing. This is what yet another term, related to yet another related thing, means.” Nothing there needs to be simplified. It needs to be organized.
I think this underlies what James (#8) was getting at.
Jargon is necessary and useful because it is accurate and specific – and widespread; news pieces covering science (for example) will use the jargon, even if they don’t use or explain it correctly. Jargon should be clarified and explained, not avoided.
Further, I worry that there’s a dangerous implicit assumption here: “If people have to strain in the slightest to learn a thing, they won’t; therefore we should proactively cater to that kind of cursory and simplistic learning, or people won’t learn at all.” In simple English: This is very bad.
I agree that knowledge needs to be made more accessible. But the place for simple English is in the introduction to the articles (and sections) of the “full” articles.
(On a larger scale: The last thing we need as a culture is to put more imagined distance between specialists or experts and laymen. Especially in the sciences and in economics.)
April 26th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
In grad school I came to believe that the word count of a scholarly article is inversely proportionate to how much an author actually has to say. The memory of slogging through 40 pages of phlegm to find a conclusion that could have been sent with a box top to Battle Creek Michigan for a brand-new squirt gun makes my head hurt. After slogging through all that language, which was so often MEANT to be obfuscating in order to conceal a lousy methodology, to make someone’s redundant research seem tenure-worthy, or to simply make an insecure academic feel smart and important, I fully embrace any effort to get writers to shit or get off the pot. I understand Erin’s fear of dumbing down the language (especially since that seems to be our national pastime of late), but it’s important to remember that simple doesn’t necessarily mean simple-minded. It’s not that hard to make things understandable, and doing so opens a door of opportunity for people who might otherwise not be able to make the leap into more esoteric stuff.
May 4th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
There is no need for a profound study of Applied Linguistics to come to the conclusion that language learning is NOT understood. In fact, our understanding of the process is so limited that there isn’t a single teaching method with any reasonable grounding. Most don’t even try.
The “Simple English Wikipedia” is, unfortunately, just another futile attempt by those with “simple” ideas about language learning. Moreover, it preys on the gullibility of those that consider non-native English speakers to be mentally handicapped.
The effort is a patronizing as it is useless.